Insurance companies continue to earn massive record profits, there’s nothing wrong with that it’s the free enterprise system at work, but people are being misled and ripped off. All insurance is not bad, in fact you’d be crazy not to have many forms of insurance, but that certainly doesn’t apply to dental insurance.
Homeowners insurance is something I’d prefer not to pay for, we’ve had it for about 20 years and never filed a claim, but what if your house burns to the ground? Let’s just say that your house is worth $250,000 and your homeowners insurance is $2,500 a year. If you pay for 20 years and never have a claim you’d be out $50,000 but if your home is destroyed could you afford to rebuild without insurance?
Insurance is for the most part designed to prevent you from suffering a catastrophic loss, and in our example the $50,000 you spent over 20 years looks like a bargain when your insurance company builds your new home for nothing. But not all insurance is created equal!
Dental insurance is a colossal waste of money. If you have dental insurance, you’re probably paying from $600 to $1,000 a year depending on a variety of variables, how many people in your family, deduct etc. So let’s say that you don’t use it for just 3 years. With an annual premium of $800 you would have paid $2,400 during that time and just like homeowners insurance you never filed a claim, but in year 4 you need some major dental work to the tune of $4,000. What happens now?
You probably won’t see this on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams but this my friends is the fleecing of America. Over 4 years you would have paid $3,200 in dental insurance premiums and you may be expecting your insurance company to foot the bill, but you’d be wrong. Most dental insurance sold today has a maximum benefit of $1,000 or $1,500, so guess who’s going to have to pay $2,500 to $3,000 out of their own pocket?
That would be you the fleecee, sorry, the person who get’s ripped off. Dental insurance has almost no value whatsoever which is why many insurance agents refuse to sell it. Homeowners insurance has value, so does car insurance and if you can still afford so does health insurance. They protect you from a devastating financial loss, but dental insurance doesn’t do that at all.
A brief history lesson, and I promise it will be brief. Back in the 60’s and 70’s when dental insurance became commonplace most plans had a maximum benefit of $1,000 or $1,500 which is the same limit that most dental insurance policies have today. The problem is that the cost when you go to the dentist has almost tripled.
Your insurance company charges you a lot more for less, and they raised your deductible too! So why is it that so many still have dental insurance? That’s a good question. Perhaps it’s because people know that they need to take care of their teeth but they just don’t know what to do. Now that you know that dental insurance is a ripoff, you don’t have to be taken advantage of anymore.
